Robert McCammon - Speaks the Nightbird

"Restrain myself." The doctor nodded and gazed into the glass's shallow pond of red wine. "Robert, I've restrained myself too long. I have grown weary of restraining myself."

"The weather is to blame," Winston spoke up. "Surely these rains will pass soon, and then we'll-"

"It's not just the weather!" Shields interrupted, with a defiant uplift of his sharp-boned chin. "It's the spirit of this place now. It's the darkness here." He drank again, finishing off the glass. "A darkness at noon the same as at midnight," he said, his lips wet. "These sicknesses are spreading. Sick of spirit, sick of body. They're linked, gentlemen. One regulates the other. I saw how Madam Chester's sickness of spirit robbed her body of health. I saw it, and there wasn't a damned thing I could do. Now Timothy's spirit has been blighted with the contagion. How long will it be before I'm attending his demise?"

"Pardon me, sir," Garrick said, before Bidwell could deliver a rebuke. "When you say the sickness is spreadin'… do you mean…" He hesitated, as he fit together exactly what he desired to say. "Do you mean we're facin' the plague?"

"Careful, Benjamin," the schoolmaster cautioned in a quiet voice.

"No, that's not what he means!" Bidwell said heatedly. "The doctor's distraught about Madam Chester's passing, that's all! Tell him you're not speaking of plague, Ben."

The doctor paused and Matthew thought he was about to announce that plague indeed had come to Fount Royal. But instead, Shields released his breath in a long weary sigh and said, "No, I'm not speaking of plague. At least, not plague caused by any physical power."

"What the good doctor means, I believe," said Johnstone to Garrick, "is that the town's current spiritual… um… vulnerability is affecting the physical health of us all."

"You mean the witch is makin' us sick," Garrick said, thick-tongued.

Bidwell decided it was time to stop these floodwaters, ere the dam break when Garrick-who was a proficient farmer but whose intellect in less earthy things was lacking-repeated these musings around the community. "Let us look to the future and not to the past, gentlemen! Elias, our deliverance is at hand in the magistrate. We should put our trust in the Lord and the law, and forbid ourselves of these destructive ramblings."

Garrick looked to Johnstone for translation. "He means not to worry," the schoolmaster said. "And I'm of the same opinion. The magistrate will resolve our difficulties."

"You put great faith in me, sirs." Woodward felt both puffed and burdened by these attentions. "I hope I meet your expectations."

"You'd better." Shields had put aside the empty glass. "The fate of this settlement is in your hands."

"Gentlemen?" Mrs. Nettles loomed in the doorway. "Dinner's a'table."

The banquet room, toward the rear of the house next to the kitchen, was a marvel of dark-timbered walls, hanging tapestries, and a fieldstone fireplace as wide as a wagon. Above the hearth was the mounted head of a magnificent stag, and displayed on both sides of it was a collection of muskets and pistols. Neither Woodward nor Matthew had expected to find a mansion out here on the coastal swampland, but a room like this-which might have served as the centerpiece in a British castle-rendered them both speechless. Above a huge rectangular table was an equally huge candlelit chandelier supported from the ceiling by thick nautical chains, and upon the floor was a carpet as red as beef-blood. The groaning board was covered with platters of food, principal among them the roasted toss 'em boys still asizzle in their juices.

"Magistrate, you sit here beside me," Bidwell directed; it was clear to Matthew that Bidwell relished his position of power, and that he was obviously a man of uncommon wealth. Bidwell had the places already chosen for his guests, and Matthew found himself seated on a pewlike bench between Garrick and Dr. Shields. Another young negress servant girl came through a doorway from the kitchen bringing wooden tankards of what proved to be-when Woodward tried a tentative sip, remembering the bite of the Indian ale-cold water recently drawn from the spring.

"Shall we have a prayer of thanks?" Bidwell asked before the first blade pierced the roasted and peppercorn-spiced chicken. "Master Johnstone, would you do the honors?"

"Surely." Johnstone and the others bowed their heads, and the schoolmaster gave a prayer that appreciated the bounties of the table, praised God for His wisdom in bringing the magistrate safely to Fount Royal, and asked for an abatement to the rains if that was indeed in God's divine plan. While Johnstone was praying, however, the muffled sound of thunder heralded the approach of another storm, and Johnstone's "Amen" sounded to Matthew as if the schoolmaster had spoken it through clenched teeth.

"Let us sup," Bidwell announced.

Knives flashed in the candlelight, spearing roasted toss 'em boys-a title rarely used in these modern days except by sportsmen who recalled the gambler's game of setting dogs upon chickens to bet upon which dog would "toss" the greatest number. A moment of spirited jabbing by Bidwell's guests was followed by tearing the meat from its bones with teeth and fingers. Hunks of the heavy, coarse-grained jonakin bread that tasted of burnt corn and could sit in a belly like a church brick found use in sopping up the greasy juices. Platters of steaming beans and boiled potatoes were there for the taking, and a servant girl brought a communal, beautifully worked silver tankard full of spiced rum with which to wash everything down the gullet.

Rain began to drum steadily on the roof. Soon it was apparent to Matthew that the banquet had drawn a number of unwelcome guests: large, buzzing horseflies and-more bothersome-mosquitoes that hummed past the ears and inflicted itching welts. In a lull of the idle conversation-which was interrupted quite frequently by the slapping at an offensive fly or mosquito-Bidwell took a drink from the rum tankard and passed it to the magistrate. Then Bidwell cleared his throat, and Woodward knew it was time to get to the heart of the matter.

"I should ask you what you know of the situation here, sir," Bidwell said, with chicken grease gleaming on his chin.

"I know only what the council told me. In essence, that you have in your gaol a woman accused of witchcraft."

Bidwell nodded; he picked up a bone from his plate and sucked on it. "Her name is Rachel Howarth. She's a mixed breed, English and Portuguese. In January, her husband Daniel was found dead in a field with his throat cut."

"His head almost severed from the neck," the doctor added.

"And there were other wounds on the body," Bidwell went on. Made by the teeth or claws of a beast. On his face, his arms, his hands." He returned the naked bone to his plate and picked up another that still held a bit of meat. "Whatever killed him… was ferocious, to say the least. But his was not the first death in such a fashion."

"The Anglican minister, Burlton Grove," Johnstone spoke up, reaching for the silver tankard. "He was murdered in a similar way in November. His corpse was found in the church by his wife. Widow, I should say. She very soon afterward left town."

"Understandable," Woodward said. "You have a minister at present?"

"No," Bidwell said. "I've been presenting sermons from time to time. Also Dr. Shields, Master Johnstone, and several others. We had a Lutheran here for a while, to serve the Germans, but he spoke very little English and he left last summer."

"The Germans?"

"That's right. At one point, we had a number of German and Dutch families. There are still… oh…" He looked to Winston for help. "How many, would you say?"

"Seven German families," Winston supplied. He swung a hand at a mosquito that drifted past his face. "Two Dutch."